This press conference aroused great attention from the Entente countries.

Britain and France immediately submitted a note asking China to calm down, while Germany was secretly happy that this was a great opportunity to stir up contradictions between China and the Entente.

German officials say that Germany has abolished all unequal treaties signed since its contact with China, and any country that maintains unequal treaties with China is actually a kind of contempt for the world powers.

The words of the Germans are full of demagoguery.

Britain and France attached great importance to the change in China's attitude towards Tsarist Russia, and the two countries believed that the main contradiction was the conflict caused by the unequal treaty signed between Tsarist Russia and China that had not been abrogated.

At this time, the situation in Tsarist Russia was already very bad, the western entrance to the sea was cut off by Turkey, the eastern port was only Vladivostok, and the land route from China could connect to Russia.

If China turns against Tsarist Russia again, then Tsarist Russia will face the dilemma of being blocked from external communications, and when the time comes, it will lose external support, and the situation in Tsarist Russia will not be optimistic.

Britain and France have different opinions on how to ease the contradictions between China and Tsarist Russia.

France believed that Tsarist Russia should return Chinese territory in order to quell the conflict. Britain does not think so, China's rapid expansion has caused Britain to worry, especially the Burma conflict by China's yin, so that the British political axe is very angry, the British political axe believes that it should be 'delayed', dragged until the war is won, and then find China to liquidate.

Britain did not have a full understanding of the internal contradictions in Tsarist Russia, believing that Tsarist Russia still had enough strength to compete with China, but not at present.

At present, Tsarist Russia is caught in a war with the Central Powers and is unable to take care of the Far East, and as long as Tsarist Russia withdraws from the west, it will certainly be able to have sufficient strength to deal with China, and then it can use these contradictions to make Tsarist Russia join the ranks of encirclement and liquidation of China.

The differences within the Allies were considered from different angles.

France is not the world leader like England, they are more for the sake of the nation, at this time France is already in danger under the German offensive, if the Allies completely withdraw on the Eastern Front, it will be very dangerous for France.

As for Britain, as the world leader, Britain considers the problem more from the perspective of international power, and its participation in this war is the result of British opportunism, and Britain wants to use this war to suppress the strong rise of Germany, so as to consolidate its position as the world leader.

As for whether France will be defeated by Germany, Britain naturally does not want to see France annexed by Germany, which will create a more formidable enemy, but Britain has been wary of China's rise in Asia after the conflict in Burma.

At this time, the Chinese Empire was very strong in terms of territory, and in a short period of time it supported two Chinese countries in Asia.

At this time, China also set foot in the Strait of Malacca, and at the same time supported the Arab Kingdom of Rashid in the Suez Strait area, which caused a great provocation to British hegemony.

Among them, Britain's concerns have been fully exploited by the United States, which has already decided to contain China and is relying on Britain's strength, otherwise it will be very difficult for the United States to contain China.

Unfortunately, the British wanted to stall for time, but the situation began to spiral out of control.

After Tsarist Russia rejected the reply to abolish the unequal treaties, the Chinese Imperial Government again submitted a note to Tsarist Russia, which not only demanded that Tsarist Russia return the Chinese territories occupied by Tsarist Russia with unequal treaties, but also demanded compensation for the losses caused to the people of Northeast China in the Hailan Bloody Case and the Russo-Russian War, with the amount of compensation amounting to 3 billion Fuxing coins.

China's additional demand for compensation undoubtedly angered Nicholas II, and made Nicholas II feel a sense of resentment that the dragon was playing in the shallows and the tiger was bullied by dogs in Pingyang.

In January 1917, mass strikes and demonstrations broke out across Russia to commemorate the "Bloody Week" of 1905. In response to the call of the Bolsheviks, the workers of the capital Petrograd held strikes and demonstrations, and they: chanting "Down with the war!" "Bread and Peace! slogan. This operation became a prelude to the February Revolution.

Not long after, on March 8, International Women's Day, and February 23 in the Russian calendar, about 130,000 men and women workers in 50 factories in Petrograd went on strike and marched, kicking off the February Revolution. The next day, the number of people participating in the strike increased to 200,000.

Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party (later renamed Russia [***]), a joint general strike was held in the capital's factories with the participation of 300,000 people. The storm of revolution frightened Tsar Nicholas II, who ordered to quickly restore order to the capital by any means.

A bloody crackdown ensued, but this time it was different from the previous ones, and the Russian population was completely disillusioned with Nicholas II.

The brutal exploitation of the factories, the shortage of agricultural supplies, and the successive defeats of the war at the front made the workers completely disillusioned with the Tsar's axe, and Nicholas II once again used force to carry out a bloody suppression of the strike, which quickly plunged the workers into a complete rage.

The workers stormed the arsenals, seized guns and ammunition, built barricades, and fought the reactionary military police. At the same time, the workers were also actively engaged in the work of winning over the army, and under the propaganda and inspiration of the workers, tens of thousands of soldiers openly stood on the side of the revolution. Together with the insurrectionary workers, they seized the Winter Palace, the Tsar's lair, and the political axe ministries, and arrested the tsar's ministers and generals.

The uprising in the capital was completely victorious, and Nicholas II, full of reluctance, immediately transferred troops from the front in an attempt to recapture the capital, but the tsarist army also mutiny under the influence of the revolution.

Yan Xishan ran to Xia Jun's house excitedly and said to Xia Jun: "Führer, a revolution has really broken out in Tsarist Russia, and the situation has begun to get out of control. ”

"Huh! The show is about to begin. Xia Jun said with a smile. Yan Xishan asked, "Then who signed an agreement with us to abolish the treaty and pay compensation?" Is it to take the opportunity to find the political axe of Tsarist Russia or the political axe of revolution? ”

"Don't worry, the political axe of Tsarist Russia will be completely finished in a short time, and it is very likely that two political axes will appear after the revolution in Tsarist Russia. Someone will sign it for us then. Xia Jun was very calm, he didn't expect the Tsarist political axe to accept the Empire's request.

Yan Xishan said worriedly: "But Britain obviously doesn't want us to recover those lost territories. ”

"The situation will soon develop to the point where the British will not be able to control it, and after the war in Europe is over, Britain will have nothing to worry about." Xia Jun said: "Britain has now lost so much money and owed so many foreign debts, and at least it has to recuperate for a while after this war, and the throne of the world boss may no longer be guaranteed." ”

Xia Jun said: "Now let's just wait and see. ”

…… The situation soon turned out to be as Xia Jun had predicted, and the political axe of Tsarist Russia was completely finished.

Seeing that the tide was turning, Nicholas II immediately announced his abdication and passed the throne to his younger brother Mikhail, who also announced his abdication the next day. In this way, the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for 304 years, was overwhelmed by the February Revolution.

After the February Revolution, there was a situation in Russia in which two regimes coexisted, rarely seen in history: the bourgeois Provisional Axe and the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

The situation in Russia suddenly became confusing.

At the same time, the revolution in Russia also worried the Entente about this, and it was obvious that the Russian Romanov dynasty was finished before China could use the sword against Russia.

The American political axe was also worried about this, and as soon as the revolution broke out in Tsarist Russia, the chances of the Allies defeating the Allies were very slim.

If Germany cannot be defeated, then the United States may not be able to recover its loans.

Under these circumstances, the United States formally declared war on Germany in March, joined the ranks of the Entente powers, and soon decided to send troops to the European theater under the pretext of the Mexican telegram incident.

The entry of the United States into the war was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue for the Allies.

Then the question of whether or not to enter the war will be in front of the Chinese Empire.

Now that even the United States has entered the war, if the Chinese Empire joins it, it will also be able to get a piece of the pie, of course, this is a declaration of war against Germany.

After the United States joined the Entente, Germany made many lucrative promises to the Chinese Empire in an attempt to persuade the Chinese Empire to join the Central Powers and declare war on the Entente.

Faced with this dilemma, many different opinions emerged within the Chinese Empire, some tried to persuade the empire to join the Entente, and some tried to get the empire to join the allies.

Xia Jun didn't care about the views of these people, he had already made up his mind to be completely neutral, that is, not to join the Entente or the Allies.

"Although if we join the Entente, we will be able to share some benefits after defeating the Allies, but this is very unfair to Germany, which has established a long-term cooperative relationship with us, and we will disregard national feelings for the sake of these interests, which will be like picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons." Xia Jun said at an internal meeting.

As for declaring war on the Entente, China could not afford to toss for too long for the time being.

If you want to fight with the Entente, then it must be a long-term war road, because the Allies will soon collapse, and then there will be only one China left to fight alone, basically to compete with the whole world, although Xia Jun has an exchange platform in his hand, but Xia Jun is worried that the economy will recession after the fight, which will lead to a decline in popular morale, and even the points will be gone at that time, so how can it be done.

Although the victory rate is still relatively large, Xia Jun is still unwilling to rashly join the ranks of the war when the empire is just unified at this time.

Joining the war did not have much benefit for China, and with the foundation of China at this time, although it could be undefeated in the face of the siege of the Entente, it could only get some territory in the end, and its economic development would suffer a serious blow.

You must know that a lot of China's investments are in the territory of the Entente countries, or in the colonies of the Entente countries, and the Entente countries still owe China money.

So it's better to be safe, and develop for another ten or twenty years, and then you can fight as much as you want.

With such an attitude, Xia Jun once again reaffirmed neutrality and asked the political axes in East China not to make radical remarks, nor to advocate China's participation in the war.

In the First World War, although China played soy sauce neutrally, it also competed with Yuben, and it was not inaction.

In this world war, China has already sought a lot of interests, and there is no need to join the ranks of the war for some seemingly beautiful but very distant interests.

(To be continued)